Transcript Seldom in Doubt but Often Wrong: Challenging Tenacious

Using Formative Assessment to
Promote Student Understanding
Stephen L. Chew, PhD
Department of Psychology
Samford University
[email protected] Twitter: @SChewPsych
Palm Beach State College
March 26, 2015
Popular Misconceptions
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Learning Styles
Memory is like a camera
Only guilty people confess to crimes
Global warming denial
Vaccines linked to autism
Creationism
Misconceptions in Science
• Naïve Physics:
– Newton vs. Aristotle
– Seasons and the Earth’s tilt
• Naïve Biology
– Evolution versus Lamarkianism
• Naïve Psychology
– Use 10% of the Brain
– Blind people have unusually sensitive organs of
touch
– Left Brain; Right Brain
Difficult Concepts
• Easily confusable
– Punishment versus negative reinforcement
• Conceptually difficult (elemental interactivity)
– Genetics and IQ
– Statistical significance
• Intuitive
• Desirable
• Just World
Extramission Theory of Visual Perception
(Winer et al., 2002)
• Vision involves active
emissions from the
eye.
• More than half of
adults may believe in
some version,
depending on how
tested
• Including students
who have had S&P in
General Psychology
Impact of Educational Experiences
Winer et al. summarize studies in which
• People were tested before and after regular
coursework on vision in Intro Psych.
• Were given a reading on vision just before
being tested
• “Virtually no evidence of learning” from
classroom or readings
But there is hope (sort of)
College students, eighth graders and fifth graders
were assigned to one of three conditions:
1. A videotaped lecture of a highly simplified
explanation of vision
2. The lecture plus explicit refutational statements
3. A control group
Subjects tested immediately and five months later.
Results
• All three groups showed reduced
extramission beliefs on the immediate test
– Fifth graders for both experimental conditions
– Eighth graders for refutational statements only
– College students refutational statements >
video only > control
• But for two of the groups, the effects had
disappeared five months later.
Winer et al. (2002) Conclusions
• “…belief is extremely resistant to standard
educational experiences that seem as though
they should counteract the
misunderstanding.”
• “We assume… that if we were to spend more
time giving several lessons on vision we could
make a sizeable dent in this misconception.”
Misconceptions Survive Formal
Instruction
• After the course is over, students revert back to
original misunderstandings (if they ever changed to
begin with).
• But they have more confidence in them because they
have taken your course. (Landau, 2003)
• If you focus on teaching, then there is nothing you
can do.
• If you focus on student learning, then this is a major
problem
What do we do about them?
• Activation and Refutation: Alert learners to incorrect
beliefs and then contrast with correct information
• Formative Assessments
Formative Assessments
• Brief, low stakes assessments that give
students (and teachers) feedback BEFORE
exams/high stake grades
Angelo, T. A. and K. P. Cross (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A
Handbook for College Teachers, Jossey-Bass.
e.g. Minute papers, muddiest point, think-pair-share
– Brief
– Low stakes
– Provide feedback to teacher and student
– Before summative assessments
Formative Assessments
• Improve metacognition for students and teachers
• Address tenacious student misconceptions
• Illustrate desired level of understanding of
knowledge for students
– Preview exam type of questions/ reduce whining
• Promote student learning and understanding
– Engagement, deep processing, recall practice, transfer
and application of knowledge, peer learning
• Promote rapport and trust
• Model thinking for understanding
A Test of Critical Thinking
In the box, draw a picture of what the
dressmaker used to cut the fabric
Obviously Wrong Answers
And the Correct Answer is:
The dressmaker used the scissors to
cut the cloth for the dress.
How did critical thinking fail?
• Content was not enough
• What could you do to ensure critical thinking?
Alternate Test
Which of the following is the correct
answer?
A.
C.
D.
B.
E.
If students don’t know what
critical thinking looks like, they
can’t accomplish it, even if they
are capable of it
A Common Scenario
• A student studies hard for an exam and feels confident
taking it. But the results are much worse than the
student expected, leaving the student to grumble, “That
sneaky instructor always asks tricky questions.”
• The instructor has delivered a brilliant set of lectures
and is confident that the students have mastered the
knowledge. But student performance on the exam
reflects a poor understanding of the concepts, leaving
the instructor to grumble, “Those lazy students just don’t
pay attention.”
• Poor metacognition for both student and teacher; both
are overconfident
Peer Instruction: Eric Mazur
• Mazur, E. (1997). Peer instruction: A user’s
manual. Prentice Hall.
• Crouch, Catherine H. and Mazur, Eric (2001)
Peer Instruction: Ten Years of Experience and
Results. American Journal of Physics, 69, 970977.
Properties of Conceptests
(Mazur, 1997)
• Focus on a single concept
• Require conceptual understanding to solve
• Have adequate response alternatives
– Ideally the incorrect answer choices should
reflect the student’s most common
misconceptions
• Be unambiguously worded
• Be neither too easy nor too difficult
The ConcepTest General Format
1. Present ConcepTest to class – 1 minute
2. Students given time to think – 1 minute
3. On a given signal, students indicate their answer
by number of fingers.
4. Have the students pick someone around them,
preferably with a different answer, to discuss their
choices – 1- 2 minutes
5. Repeat step three to see how choices have
changed
6. Explain and discuss the answer as a class – 2+
minutes
Newborn infants develop a powerful
emotional bond…
1. Almost immediately after birth to both parents
2. Almost immediately after birth to the mother,
but attachment to fathers often does not occur
until the child reaches 1 or 2 years of age
3. Almost immediately after birth to caregivers
who satisfy the baby’s physical needs, such as
hunger.
4. To caregivers after about 6 to 8 months
Newborn infants develop a powerful
emotional bond…
1. Almost immediately after birth to both parents
2. Almost immediately after birth to the mother,
but attachment to fathers often does not occur
until the child reaches 1 or 2 years of age
3. Almost immediately after birth to caregivers
who satisfy the baby’s physical needs, such as
hunger.
4. To caregivers after about 6 to 8 months
Misconceptions About Correlations
• A positive correlation is better than a negative
one.
• Correlations imply causation.
ConcepTest for Correlations
A marriage counselor studies four different tests
designed to predict marital happiness to see which one
is best. She administers the four tests to 80 couples who
are about to get married. After two years, she measures
the marital happiness of the couples and correlates it
with each of the four tests with the following results:
Test 1: r = -.73
Test 2: r = .62
Test 3: r = .25
Test 4: r = .10
If the therapist wants to pick the single best test to use
in her work, which one should she choose and why?
Read
First Poll
Discuss
Second Poll
Factual Multiple Choice
Which of the following is the strongest
correlation?
a. r = 0.10
b. r = 0.57
c. r = -0.63
d. r = 0.25
Probe for Understanding
Samford decides that the ACT and SAT are obsolete,
and decides to find a new college entrance exam
to use for admissions. They have incoming
freshmen take four new entrance exams. After
the end of the first year, the student's GPA is
correlated with each of the four scores.
Test A: r = 0.10
Test C: r = 0.55
Test B: r = -0.64
Test D: r = -0.50
Which exam should Samford adopt? Explain your
answer. To get full credit, you must choose the
correct test and have the correct explanation.
Incorrect Answers and Explanations
• Test A because .10 has the highest correlation.
This will show the best example of each
student's scores.
Incorrect Answers and Explanations
• Test C: r = 0.55; because people who took
test C made higher than the others, so their
GPA would be higher.
• Test C, since you would want a positive
correlation and not negative. Even though
the test B correlation is greater, the
correlation is negative which would mean
their GPA's were low.
Correct Answer and Explanation
• Test B would be the best answer. Even
though it has a negative correlation, it is
the strongest (strength of correlations are
determined in terms of absolute value).
Correct Answer and Incorrect Explanation,
and Vice-Versa
• The Test B should be used because it's confounding
variables are more close to an absolute value of -.64.
The students already have enough stress as it is only
the highest scores on the ACT and SAT should
determine the status of entrance.
• I think they would pick Test C. Even though .64 is
bigger, it is also negative, resulting in a negative
correlation. They would want the test scores and the
grades to be positively correlated.
Conceptests vs. Control: Factual
No Conceptests
Conceptests
100
91.67
% Chosen
75
62
50
25
22
16
8.33
0
0
0
0
A
B
C**
Question Alternative
D
Conceptests vs. Control: Probe
No Conceptests
Conceptests
100
% Chosen
75
53.19
50
50
36.17
29.55
25
18.18
8.51
2.27
2.13
0
A
B**
C
Question Alternative
D
Advantages of ConcepTests
• They give feedback to both the student and teacher about
the level of student understanding (formative
assessment).
• They are highly engaging to students.
• They take little preparation or class time.
• They can be used with any size class.
• They stimulate class discussion.
• Students learn from each other as well as the teacher.
• They make students aware of intuitive but incorrect
beliefs they hold about psychology.
• They give a preview to the class about the kinds of
questions they can expect on an exam.
Think-Pair-Share
• Create a question that requires conceptual
understanding or application of a concept,
preferably one which also encompasses a
common misconception.
• Think: Present the question and have students
think of their answer
• Pair: Have students pair up and discuss their
answers and reasoning
• Share: Discuss as a class
Think-Pair-Share for Study Videos
Which of the following is an example of poor
metacognition?
1. Joe failed an exam because he memorized definitions
but his professor tested him over comprehension.
2. Amy felt confident she did well on the exam but was
stunned to find out she barely made a D grade.
3. Cindy studied by reading her notes and her textbook
over and over again, but still made a bad grade.
4. Sam thought he could learn the material well enough
if he just read the chapter summaries, but he ended
up failing the exam.
Another One
Which of the following does NOT represent studying at a deep
level?
1. As I read, I relate the information to what I already know.
2. As I read, I relate the information to my own personal
experience
3. As I read, I think of the key distinctions between this
concept and other concepts I’ve learned about.
4. As I read, I repeat the information to myself multiple
times.
5. I often close the book and my notes and just try to write
out all the information I can remember on my own.
Other Formative Assessments
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Concept Maps
Question Generation
Directed paraphrasing
Application cards
Headline Writing
Minute Papers
Exit Problems
Exam Wrappers
Your Assignment
• Think of a difficult concept or misconception
in your own area
• Create some formative assessments for the
concept.
• Give it a try in your courses